Starting this fall, resident mentors might be temporarily assigned a roommate in an effort to avoid forcing more than 1,000 incoming students into transitional housing, which is three students to a double room for a period of time.

The change is going to negatively affect the mentors and freshmen involved, and the university will be the only entity benefitting from it.

Freshmen living with resident mentors will have certain aspects of their first year in college taken away from them. A big part of freshman year is learning how to make it through the year with the assistance of a roommate. Although all students aren’t necessarily best friends with the people they live with, most still form a bond with the person sleeping in the same room with them.

If a first-year student is living with an upperclassman, it can be assumed that both individuals are at very different points in their college careers. The resident mentors are there to help students with certain issues, but sometimes freshmen need a roommate who is going through
the same experience.

Instead, the freshman technically will live with someone who oversees them.

This housing arrangement also puts the resident mentors in a very uncomfortable position. When living with someone that they’re supposed to be “mentoring,” it’s difficult to draw the line between friend and resident mentor.

The resident mentor is supposed to be a neutral party who helps students living in the dorms through issues they might have. When a mentor has another resident living in their room, it personally involves them in the floor’s community.

This allows mentor’s personal feelings to be involved in issues, and in a sense, it interferes with the mentor’s ability to do their job effectively.

Both the incoming student and mentor are going to feel uncomfortable about their housing situation, regardless of whether or not the two get along. The dynamic between the two parties likely won’t allow either to feel like they can really be themselves in their own room.

Many mentors already are leaving their positions, and there’s a petition up online that they’re signing to get rid of the change.

There are other solutions to the overcrowding MSU is experiencing. For one, if the university can’t house as many students as it’s accepting, admissions officers should start accepting fewer students.

If the resident mentors can’t have their own rooms, the university also could look into them sharing rooms with intercultural aides, older students who are in mentorship positions instead of incoming freshmen.

MSU should think twice before throwing first-year students in the same room as their resident mentors because it calls for awkward situations for everyone involved.